I know all activities at the Kennedy Center besides this audition were canceled for at least one of the days because of winter storms. Maybe that has something to do with it?
Even rigged to professional recording equipment, getting trombone playing to come across through Zoom is difficult since it's designed for conferencing, and even with the outside noise auto-mute turned off it can get canny and the dynamic range is severely stunted. Not to mention the possible connectivity issues...
I can think of several ways to deal with the issue of a music director being physically absent from the audition that would be far better than having him listen over Zoom. Why not simply record all the candidates playing the full round with their high-fidelity equipment and have the MD listen later? Or if you only have three finalists, why not give them each a trial week? The method they chose was destined to result in a no-hire and ultimately wasted the time and money of many people.
No hire. Heard the music director listened through zoom… Finalists were Darren Acosta, Michael Burner, and Derek Gullett.
I wonder if the MD listening through Zoom had something to do with the no hire…